Erma Malnati


SHEFFIELD — Erma Malnati, 96, of Copper Hill Road died March 10, 2007, at the home of her daughter, Marie Duryea, in Albuquerque, N.M.

She married Joseph A. Malnati on Nov. 28, 1928, in St. Joseph’s Church in North Canaan. He died Aug. 2, 1994.

She was born in Housatonic, Mass., on Dec. 23, 1910, daughter of Maria (Veia) and Maurice Spadaccini.

She attended schools in Housatonic and East Canaan. She worked at the former Winsted Hosiery and assisted her husband in the operation of their dairy farm, Cooper Hill Farm, until its sale in 1986.

She was a communicant of Our Lady of the Valley Church in Sheffield, and a member of its Women’s Club.

In addition to her daughter, Maria, she is survived by one son, Antonio J. Malnati, of Sheffield, and another daughter, Laura A. Hilf, of New Hartford, N.Y.; nine grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandaughter.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, March 24, at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of the Valley Church, the Rev.John Lis officiating. Burial will follow in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Great Barrington.

The family will receive friends on Friday, March 23, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Birches-Roy Funeral Home.

Memorial donations may be sent to Our Lady of the Valley Memorial Fund in care of the funeral home, 33 South St., Great Barrington, MA 01230.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less